I was too young to remember where I was when John F. Kennedy was shot. I do remember where I was when I heard John Lennon had been shot. (I was in Dallas with my then boyfriend Tony. We were returning from a night out and heard it on the car radio.) I will never forget the first half of my day on September 11, 2001.
I also remember April 5, 1994. Well, actually I guess it was a couple days after that when we heard that Kurt Cobain was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. KROQ, and then everyone else, proclaimed that he had done it on April 5, but he had not been discovered until later. It was one of those shell-shocked moments that is surrounded by lack of surprise. Most rock fans knew of his drug problems and his chronic stomach ailments that kept him from normal living let alone performing. We also speculated that living with his wife Courtney was at best intense.
What many of us didn’t know, was what the LA Times reported yesterday, that he was passionately creating art in the last two years of his life and was considering quitting music for good and committing to painting.
I would link you to the Times story but they don’t allow you to look at any stories unless you are a seven day subscriber – something that infuriates me enough to be a weekend subscriber only.
When I turned the pages of my Sunday Calendar section yesterday I gasped at a picture of one of his paintings. It was absolutely incredible. I once went to a benefit show at Club Lingerie, it must have been in 1993. Kurt and Courtney did a couple songs together, acoustic. He was quiet in between songs while his wife joked that he was going to leave her for Winona. This was referring to Ms. Ryder’s penchant for rock stars – or vice versa. Kurt didn’t even crack a smile. After their performance Courtney disappeared but Kurt hung out near the stage watching the other performers. I admit my moments of side-line stalking. I couldn’t take my eyes off him – those blue eyes - he was so incredibly beautiful and obviously pained at the same time. Exactly like the painting the Times printed.
He could’ve done it. He could’ve quit and been a millionaire for the rest of his life and just painted. He could’ve worked through some of that pain. He wouldn’t have to show up at galleries or museums if he didn’t want to. He could’ve painted to his hearts content and not answer to anyone. I wish someone could have convinced him. His stomach evidently spoke louder than any words.
During his painting jag here in Los Angeles, Kurt and Courtney left the country for several weeks and while they were away, their apartment flooded and apparently destroyed most of his work. Very little is left and besides the cover art to Incesticide, and his diaries, we will have to see if Courtney can see her way to letting the world see what’s left of his visual arts.
Even though he became a rock icon and made some of the best rock records ever, none of it was apparently to his hearts content and even answering to himself was too much. Hopefully Francis Bean inherited her dad’s creativity and she can use it to work through her own pain. Ten years have passed. He was 27. I was living in a guesthouse at the time, after the ’94 earthquake displaced me. I was creating a bunch of artwork in the guesthouse garage listening to Nirvana at high decibels. He inspired me then and now he inspires me again. Artists create because they have to. I wish he still had to.
